GO TO SPOTIFY

QUOTES:

The term SEAL is actually an acronym which stands for – sea, air and land

The percentage of people that make it through seal training is about 20%

What are the instructors testing you for? Will you keep going

There's some internal drive that you either have or you don't have. And if you have it, you won't quit, and if you don't have it, you're going to quit

You might be an exceptional swimmer and you might have exceptional upper body strength, but you're not that fast. They're going to find out what your weakness is. You might not like the cold, they're going to see it. You might not like the boat on your head, they're going to see it. They might see that you have a bad temper, they're going to find that, and they're going to pick at that thing to either make you come out the other side, or make you quit

One of the few things that you learn in basic seal training is to shrug your shoulders and go forward

If there's anything that you learn, it's to keep pushing through things that suck

You can't teach it. I would say that you can grow it. If you've got the seed of some sort of fire, you could probably grow, and you can get better at it

I had a guy on my podcast that was shot down in Vietnam, and he was shot down in south Vietnam, captured, and he had to do a seven-month trek through the jungle with his captors, and at one point he's in a 2-feet tall bamboo cage in the jungle, and he's trying to fall asleep but he can't sleep because the rats are gnawing at the wounds on his legs, and he is shackled. And he was there with guys that did not have the intrinsic will to carry on, and if you didn't have that will to carry on, you die

I would love to be able to give you this profound anchor that people need to have, but it's like “do you want to do this or not,” which is what I think a lot of it boils down to. Do you actually want to do this or not? Do you actually want to do this or not? Because if you actually want to do it, what's going to stop you? Nothing. And if you don't really want to do it, what's going to stop you? Just about anything that comes up. Just about any obstacle that gets in your way becomes an excuse. It becomes a reason. It comes a rationale for not proceeding down that path. And this is interesting too, you when you talk to people that went to SEAL training that didn't make it, most of the time “it's some reason.” There's a medical reason. There's a family problem. There's very few people that look at you and say “oh, I quit because it sucked, which is what happens to the vast majority of people. The vast majority of people that don't make it through SEAL training and by this I mean 80-90%, they didn't make it through because they quit

Your excuses will destroy you and take everything that you ever wanted from you if you let them

Excuse is definitely not a friend it. It can seem like a friend, just like your friend that keeps feeding you drinks at the bar, but are they really helping you in any way shape or form? No, they're not. So when your excuses make you feel a little bit better about the fact that you didn't execute on what you needed to execute on, then they can make you feel better but they're not helping you, they're not helping you at all

Extreme ownership is – this went wrong, this failed, didn't accomplish this, and it's not the fault of my boss, it's not the fault of my girlfriend, it's not the fault of my parents, it's not the fault of the weather. It's my fault. And I’m going to take ownership of it. And I’m going to fix it

When you look around at your life, and you look around at your job, and your financial situation, and your relationship, and your physical health, and when you look at all those things and all the problems that you may have with those things, and you say “the reason I have all those problems is because of me” that can hurt, that can sting. And a lot of times our ego rejects that, and makes excuses, and lies, and then we don't have to change anything, and then nothing changes

When the excuses all go away, and people can actually confront the fact that this is all because of me, and it hurts, but is also unbelievably empowering. Because if these problems are because of me, then I’m capable of fixing these problems. So even though extreme ownership hurts and is painful, it's also liberating, because now you have control over your fate and over your destiny

How am I going to build your confidence? Well, what I’m going to do is I’m going to take you and put you into a situation that I know you can handle. I’m going to give you a task that I know you can do

If someone's trying to build confidence from a work perspective, we do the same thing. Give that person a task, a project that they can handle and help them build their confidence. As far as you as an individual human being, it's a very similar process. Train, study, work, practice, train, study, work, practice, train, study, work, practice, and eventually you will increase your confidence

I don't think imposter syndrome is a bad thing. I think if you feel it, it's actually a good indication that you're humble and you have an open mind and you're going to listen to what people have to say. If you feel like you have an impostor syndrome, if you're going to a meeting and you're going to get assigned a project, or you’ll be discussing a project where you think “wait, should I even be here, should I be put in charge of this project?” What you do is you go into the meeting and you say “hey everyone, I really appreciate everyone coming to the kickoff of this meeting, hey just so everyone knows this is my first time running a project like this, I’m definitely going to have some questions for some of you that done this before, so if you see me going off track on something, and you see a mistake that I’m making please let me know, because what I want is for the team to win”

My standard operating procedure was to have my subordinate leadership come up with plans, instead of me trying to come up with the plans. In fact, that's the best way to operate. Why? There's a multitude of reasons. Number one, I want you to have ownership of the plan. If I’m imposing a plan on you then that's not really your plan, I want you to come up with the plan

How important do you think it is to be the leader that's able to take a step back? That is the job of a leader. That is the job of a leader to take a step back, detach from the situation, and see the entire picture of what is unfolding, or what is being planned, or what is happening. If you are in the problem, you won't see the solution to the problem. You have to be able to detach

If I got people that work for me, and they can't come up with a plan by themselves, I’m a complete failure as a leader

It's an investment in a long-term efficiency, because even though I might have to invest a little bit more time right now and I spent 10 minutes explaining to you why this tactic would be better than that tactic, even though it's going to cost me 10 minutes right now or maybe a half an hour, we look up in six months and you're actually coming up with better plans than me

I was never great at anything as a kid. I wasn't the fastest, I wasn't the strongest, I wasn't the smartest, but I did know that I could work hard. I had to work hard, and I listened to people

It's war. It's people being wounded, people being killed. In Iraq with the insurgents that we were fighting, it's them torturing people, mutilating their bodies, raping, beheading people. Horror

Other people, we don't know what they've been through, you don't know what kind of childhood they've had, you don't know what kind of horrors they've seen, you don't know what kind of abuse they've suffered, you don't know what kind of trials and tribulations other people have faced

Every human faces challenges, and you don't know what they've been through, and they might have been through things that are worse than what I’ve been through

There's evil in the world when there's evil people in the world. And evil people are going to do heinous and atrocious things. And that's a reality. And that's always been the reality. And the best thing that I can do is, well… when I was in the military, to do my best to stop that kind of atrocious behavior. And when I’m out of the military, try and help people move away from those thoughts

There's evil people in the world. I accept that reality. I understand that reality. There's also good people in the world. And there's people that do amazing things. There's people that sacrifice their lives for their friends. And that's also a part of humanity. So, I like to focus on that part of humanity, rather than the dark side of humanity. But if you really want to appreciate the light and the good, then you have to recognize that there's darkness and there's evil

Because even though you haven't lost any friends, you haven't lost any of your brothers, you will. This is part of life, everyone's died. And in combat people have died, and people carried on. And I know that my friends that died, they would not want me to sit around and mourn, and break down and drink and pop pills. They wouldn't want me to do that at all. They'd want me to live. That's what they would want. They would want me to live. They would want me to go out and make things happen and drive on and enjoy and surf and play guitar and do jiujitsu, that's what they'd want me to do. In fact, they would be disgusted if what I did with the gift that they gave me was to piss it away. They'd be disgusted, and I won't do that, not a chance. I’m going to live like they would want me to

We as adults are not used to losing control of our emotions. So, when you lose one of your friends, you lose one of your family members, you're going to get hit with waves of emotion that you can't control, and this sometimes causes people to really overreact. And think that they're in this terrible place because they think “oh my gosh, I’ve been able to control my emotions for the last 30 years, and now I’m lost, now I can't control my emotions, there's something wrong with me.” This is what I learned – those waves of emotion, they're going to roll back, and you're going to you're going to get control again

I had a guy on my podcast that was in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He was a young private soldier, and then he was a little bit more senior when he was in Korea, and then in Vietnam he was a battalion commander so he's in charge of 700 guys. And I asked him something about the casualties that he took in his battalion, and it's been 60 years since he was in Vietnam, I asked him about casualties that he took and he got choked up, lost control of his emotions for a second. And when I saw that I felt so relieved because I thought “oh, it's always going to be like this, and that's okay.” It's normal, you lost your friends, you lost your brothers. Is it wrong that you get choked up when you talk about it? Nothing wrong with that. Here's a guy that lost some of his men 60 years ago and he's getting choked up right now, why? Because he loved them, because he wishes he could have brought them through that conflict and he didn't, and he feels it. And he lived a normal life, retired from the army, got jobs, and had another career, but he lost his friends, his brothers, his men, and that hurts, and it's not going to go away, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with you

Suppressing emotions isn't going to help, nor is letting them run your life. So, because you're sad now, you're going to make a bunch of bad decisions. No, it doesn't work like that. Okay, you get emotional sometimes, okay got it, now get control of your emotions, and carry on with your life

Remember, don't dwell

Embrace those emotions, but don't let those emotions embrace you, don't let those emotions run your life

If you're in the woods and you don't know where to go, start walking. You got to start walking because the perspective is not going to change. You have to start moving forward, you have to start taking steps in order to improve your vision, improve your perspective, change your perspective, make some kind of progress. And worst-case scenario, you figure out that you walked in the wrong direction. Okay, now you can walk in the other direction, and that's going to be fine. But standing there, lost, and not doing anything is just waiting to die, waiting to starve to death, don't let that happen

I'm never going to know everything, and if I take the time to try and know everything, everything will have changed by the time I know it

Very few decisions are final

Eventually inaction will cost

Your default setting should be – I’m going to do something

You see that problem over there, you got to go solve that problem. It's not going to go away. You got to be aggressive, that's got to be your default mode – to take action and make things happen

There's an underlying core component and belief and innate DNA in the SEAL teams, and that is you take care of your friends

If you take care of other people, they'll take care of you. If you screw other over other people, you're going to get screwed over

How do you get promoted? Don't worry about getting promoted. Focus on the team, focus on the mission, focus on doing a good job, focus on supporting your teammates. If you do those things, you're going to get promoted

Combat is like life but amplified and intensified

Discipline equals freedom

The more discipline you have in your life, the more freedom you will end up with. So, if you lack the discipline to exercise and eat healthy, you will end up being a slave to disease. If you lack the discipline to work hard, save your money, you will end up a slave to finances. If you lack the discipline to manage your time correctly, you will end up with no free time. If you have self-discipline, if you have the discipline to save your money and work hard and invest your money properly, if you have the discipline to manage your time correctly and not waste a bunch of time, if you have the discipline to exercise and eat healthy, you will end up with freedom

It starts right now

Chocolate chip cookies. They're a discipline lapse for me. I'm not a cyborg

If I have to yell at you to get my point across as a leader, I’ve made like 47 other mistakes. My goal is that I don't even have to say anything, that's my goal as a leader. My goal is – I don't have to say a word and you already know what to do, and you make it happen, and I look at you and give you a thumbs up and say, “good job.” That's my goal

If you have a closed mind, you're going to fall apart

I don't hire people so I can tell them what to do, I hire good people so they can tell me what to do. In a leadership position you should be listening more than you should be talking

You take any trait of a human being, and you take it to an extreme, masculine or feminine, it's going to be a problem

I don't let the highs, and the lows affect me too much. Because we're going to have wins, we're going to have losses, we're going to have successes, we're going to have failures, we're going to have good nights, we're going to have bad nights, we're going to have good relationships, we're going to have bad relationships, we're going to have good ideas and bad ideas, we're going to make money, we're going to lose money. All these things are going to happen. And if you oscillate emotionally up and down drastically, it's going to be problematic. So, finding a good stable centered way to be and look at the world and take everything that you see with a little bit of a grain of salt and don't get swayed too drastically in one direction or the other, then you're going to be okay

That's what a business is too, that's the way it should be. We're working together to solve problems and when we're successful we get rewarded for that

Go do something that's hard, go, try and accomplish something that's hard. You may win. You may lose. You may succeed. You may fail. I’ll tell you what, you'll be better

You're going to fail, and you're going to fail, and you're going to fail, and you're going to fail, and then you're going to win. And that's life. Life without those challenges, it's just existence. Don't just exist, go live

First law of combat leadership – cover and move. We work together as a team. While I was doing my job, while I was serving the country, my wife covered for me where I couldn't deliver on the home front with three kids and then four kids, she covered the finances, the water heater that's broken, the car tire that needs changing, she did all that stuff

If you could bring someone back who's no longer with us and have a conversation with them, who would it be and what would that conversation entail? Well, I'd bring back: Marc Lee, Mike Monsoor, and Ryan Job. And I’d tell them: “Thank you”

Zrzeczenie się Praw Własności i Klauzula Użycia Edukacyjnego

Prezentowane na tej platformie treści, w tym m.in. transkrybowane cytaty, nie są naszą własnością. Wszelkie prawa i własność do opublikowanych treści należą do oficjalnych autorów i twórców odpowiednich kanałów YouTube i Spotify, z których pochodzą te treści. Materiał ten jest udostępniany wyłącznie w celach edukacyjnych. Nie rościmy sobie żadnych praw własności ani autorstwa tych treści i uznajemy, że pozostają one własnością intelektualną ich odpowiednich właścicieli.